Page:Shelley, a poem, with other writings (Thomson, Debell).djvu/25

All powers and virtues that ennoble men—
   The hero's courage and the martyr's truth,
The saint's white purity, the prophet's ken,
   The high unworldliness of ardent youth,
   The poet's rapture, the apostle's ruth,
Informed the Song; whose theme all themes above
Was still the sole supremacy of Love.

The peals of thunder echoing through the sky,
   The moaning and the surging roar of seas,
The rushing of the storm's stern harmony,
   The subtlest whispers of the summer breeze,
   The notes of singing birds, the hum of bees,
All sounds of nature, sweet and wild and strong
Commingled in the flowing of the song;

Which flowing mirrored all the Universe,—
   With sunsets flushing down the golden lines,
And mountains towering in the lofty verse,
   And landscapes with their olives and their vines
   Spread out beneath a sun which ever shines,
With moonlit seas and pure star-spangled skies,
The World a Poem, and Earth Paradise.

But ever and anon in its swift sweetness
   The voice was heard to lisp and hesitate,
Or quiver absently from its completeness,
   As one in foreign realms who must translate
   Old thoughts into new language—Ah, how great
The difference between our rugged tongue
And that in which its hymns before were sung!